U.S.|How the Illinois Governor’s Race Turned Into One of the Most Expensive in the Country

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How the Illinois Governor’s Race Turned Into One of the Most Expensive in the Country

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J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic candidate for governor of Illinois, left, faced off against the Republican incumbent, Gov. Bruce Rauner, in a debate in Chicago this month.CreditCreditRich Hein/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated Press

CHICAGO — In a political climate in which invective and vitriol have become the norm, the race to become governor of Illinois still sticks out for its rancor. But the bitter tenor and record-shattering money being spent here by two ultra-wealthy men have little to do with the political turbulence in Washington.

It has more to do with toilets.

In the Democratic corner is J.B. Pritzker, an entrepreneur and billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, who has contributed eye-popping amounts of his own money to the race. On the Republican side, the incumbent, Bruce Rauner, a multimillionaire former private equity executive, is seeking a second term. In all, about $244 million has flowed into their campaigns — and counting.

Mr. Rauner, who ran four years ago on a business-world, outsider platform, has struggled to make a mark as governor of a blue-leaning state and is seen as perhaps the nation’s most vulnerable incumbent governor. Illinois went without a budget for more than two years, as Mr. Rauner clashed with a Democratic Legislature over taxes, term limits, workers’ compensation and pretty much everything else.

Mr. Pritzker has other problems, too. That’s where plumbing comes in: This month, Mr. Pritzker paid $330,000 to county government after a leaked inspector general report found that tax break claims on a mansion he owned had been part of a “scheme to defraud.” The report included emails indicating that Mr. Pritzker’s wife, M.K. Pritzker, had instructed contractors to disconnect toilets in one of the family’s side-by-side mansions in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood while it was under renovation so that it could be declared uninhabitable. This way, it avoided steep taxes. Galia Slayen, a spokeswoman for Mr. Pritzker, said no laws were broken regarding the tax breaks.

The toilet revelations were only among the latest in a series of battering claims — over taxes, race, wealth, labor unions, and oversight of a state-run veterans home — in a bruising campaign. The race has packed the airwaves with ads and has left some voters, even in a place that’s accustomed to political rough and tumble, in something of a daze.

“I’ve never seen this, at all, in any race,” Ewell Wallace, a Chicago resident, said on a recent day. Mr. Wallace, who is 53 and works in information technology, said he preferred Mr. Pritzker — by a very slim margin. “I would look to the governor’s race and think the campaign should be a little more classy, but it’s all really rotten right now.”

The sheer size of spending on the race is enormous, though so far it remains shy of the record set in the 2010 campaign for governor of California. Of Mr. Pritzker’s approximately $165 million campaign war chest, about $162 million has come from his own pocket, according to public filings with the Illinois State Board of Elections. That puts Mr. Pritzker’s self-funding among the highest for a governor’s race, approaching Meg Whitman’s record, adjusted for inflation, in that 2010 California governor’s race, which she lost. Without adjusting for inflation, Mr. Pritzker’s self-funding tops Ms. Whitman’s.

Mr. Rauner’s total is approximately $80 million, of which about $58 million is his own money.

Candidates Who Self-Funded Their Gubernatorial Campaigns

J.B. Pritzker and Bruce Rauner, the two candidates for Illinois governor, are among the top self-funders since 2000. Candidates marked with a square won the general election and became their states’ governors.

CANDIDATE

AMOUNT FROM SELF (millions)

YEAR

STATE

PARTY

Meg Whitman

$167

2010

California

Republican

J.B. Pritzker

162

2018

Illinois

Democrat

103

2002

New York

Independent

Tom Golisano

70

2002

Texas

Democrat

Tony Sanchez

70

2010

Florida

Republican

Rick Scott

58

2018

Illinois

Republican

Bruce Rauner

Jon Corzine

54

2005

New Jersey

Democrat

44

2006

Michigan

Republican

Richard M. DeVos Jr.

44

2006

California

Democrat

Steve Westly

Douglas R. Forrester

40

2005

New Jersey

Republican

CANDIDATE

AMOUNT FROM SELF (millions)

YEAR

STATE

PARTY

Meg Whitman

$167

2010

California

Republican

J.B. Pritzker

162

2018

Illinois

Democrat

103

Tom Golisano

2002

New York

Independent

Tony Sanchez

70

2002

Texas

Democrat

Republican

70

2010

Florida

Rick Scott

Bruce Rauner

58

2018

Illinois

Republican

Jon Corzine

54

2005

New Jersey

Democrat

Richard M. DeVos Jr.

2006

Michigan

Republican

44

Steve Westly

44

2006

California

Democrat

Douglas R. Forrester

40

2005

New Jersey

Republican

CANDIDATE

AMOUNT FROM SELF (millions)

YEAR

STATE

PARTY

$167

2010

Calif.

Rep.

Meg Whitman

J.B. Pritzker

162

2018

Ill.

Dem.

Tom Golisano

103

2002

N.Y.

Ind.

Tony Sanchez

70

2002

Tex.

Dem.

70

2010

Fla.

Rep.

Rick Scott

Bruce Rauner

58

2018

Ill.

Rep.

Jon Corzine

54

2005

N.J.

Dem.

Richard M. DeVos Jr.

44

2006

Mich.

Rep.

44

Steve Westly

2006

Calif.

Dem.

Douglas R. Forrester

40

2005

N.J.

Rep.

CANDIDATE

AMOUNT FROM

SELF (millions)

YEAR

STATE

PARTY

2010

Calif.

R

$167

Meg Whitman

J.B. Pritzker

162

2018

Ill.

D

Tom Golisano

103

2002

N.Y.

I

Tony Sanchez

70

2002

Tex.

D

R

70

2010

Fla.

Rick Scott

Bruce Rauner

2018

Ill.

R

58

Jon Corzine

2005

N.J.

D

54

Richard M. DeVos Jr.

2006

Mich.

R

44

Steve Westly

2006

Calif.

D

44

Douglas R. Forrester

40

2005

N.J.

R

By Rachel Shorey/The New York Times | Source: National Institute on Money in Politics | Note: Numbers are adjusted for inflation.

How does all this campaign cash actually get spent? Primarily on ads: Mr. Pritzker has spent more than $77 million on advertising, dwarfing the more than $36 million spent by Mr. Rauner. (There were also more esoteric expenses, like the $600 Mr. Rauner paid for an event featuring a petting zoo from a vendor called Wild Times Exotics.)

Mr. Rauner has trailed significantly in several polls, in a state that Hillary Clinton won in 2016 by 17 percentage points. Among the attacks on Mr. Rauner: His critics question his administration’s handling of an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease at a state-run home for veterans in Quincy, a small city on the western edge of Illinois.

This month, the state attorney general opened an investigation into the administration’s handling of the problem, which left about a dozen people dead over a matter of years. Lisa Madigan, the outgoing Democratic attorney general, is looking into whether the administration’s handling of the outbreak violated any laws or contributed to the deaths.

In public statements, Mr. Rauner has denied there was any slowdown in the response.

The various scandals crested earlier this month in a debate on stage at the Quincy Community Theatre, where Mr. Rauner and Mr. Pritzker faced off in tones that would not have seemed out of place on a late-night sketch show.

“Simple fact, four of my nine predecessors as governor went to jail,” Mr. Rauner said at one point. “Mr. Pritzker has a very good chance of being No. 5.” Mr. Pritzker responded by accusing the governor of a “cover-up” concerning the veterans home outbreak.

As Election Day has neared, new accusations have emerged, along with punches and counterpunches.

Last week, 10 current and former members of Mr. Pritzker’s campaign staff filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Latino and black staff members had been treated differently from their white counterparts. The suit said black workers had been “herded into race-specific positions where they are expected to interact with the public, offered no meaningful chance for advancement, and receive less favorable treatment than their white counterparts.”

Mr. Pritzker’s campaign denied the allegations, saying that they were part of an extortion attempt; the campaign shared a letter the workers sent seeking $7.5 million in punitive damages before filing the suit. “The incidents listed in this complaint are baseless and make offensive claims,” Juliana Stratton, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor and Mr. Pritzker’s running-mate, said in a statement.

On another day last week, Mr. Rauner stood before news cameras not far from the Chicago River for a news conference billed this way: “Pritzker’s Union Hypocrisy.” At issue was a report that said Mr. Pritzker, who has secured the endorsement of almost every major labor union, used nonunion workers on a $25 million renovation on one of his mansions, as well as union workers. A spokeswoman for Mr. Pritzker acknowledged the nonunion labor, and said he had minimal involvement on his home renovations.

“He’s clearly a phony, clearly a fraud on this,” Mr. Rauner said. “He doesn’t care about union workers. He cares about himself and protecting a few hundred thousand dollars of his inheritance.”

President Trump has said little about the governor’s race here, even as Chicago — in particular the intractable problem of its gun violence — has been a regular subject of his public conversation.

In the past, Mr. Rauner criticized Mr. Trump for his stances on matters like the racially-charged clashes in Charlottesville, Va., and he also expressed misgivings about the confirmation of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.

But as distressing polling numbers have continued to arrive, Mr. Rauner has struck tones not unlike the president’s. In a debate hosted by the Chicago Sun-Times, Mr. Rauner appeared to link undocumented immigrants with the city’s problems with violence. “One of the reasons we have such high unemployment in the city of Chicago and so much crime is the massive number of illegal immigrants here take jobs away from American citizens and Chicago citizens,” Mr. Rauner said.